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Giant Brain Candy: More Yeses Than You Think. People asking for help underestimated by as much as half how many others would say yes, and they underestimated how good the helpers would feel about helping. Source: Underestimating helpfulness.
Strong evidenceThe research
  1. Flynn, F. J., & Lake, V. K. B. (2008). If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 128–143.
  2. Zhao, X., & Epley, N. (2022). Surprisingly happy to have helped: Underestimating prosociality creates a misplaced barrier to asking for help. Psychological Science, 33(10), 1708–1731.

Journey 8 · Abundance

More Yeses Than You Think

People asking for help underestimated by as much as half how many others would say yes, and they underestimated how good the helpers would feel about helping.

Source: Underestimating helpfulness · Strong evidence

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